When a Western musician thinks of Israel, the immediate association is of incessant political conflict and terrorism, not the country's rich cultural life. Yet, for a state that has endured one terrorist outrage after another over the last four years, Israel's thriving contemporary music scene — a part of classical music events, blossoming with over 2,300 classical concerts a year — is an astounding feat. In March 2002, while biweekly suicide attacks ended the lives of over 120 Israeli civilians, concert halls were unbelievably full despite the fear, or perhaps just because of it, as a constructive escapism. A year later, still under shaky political and economic conditions, Avigail Arnheim, the director of music events at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, and Dan Yuhas, the newly-elected chair of the Israel Composers' League (and the music director of the Israel Contemporary Players) initiated preparations for three concurrent festivals of contemporary music in October 2004. A Western musician, not knowing the details, would think that they were planning events for Berlin and Munich audiences, and not for Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem listeners.